Shifting responsibility to consumers minimises the role of energy industry and policymakers, University of Sydney research suggests
Electricity generation is responsible for close to half of Australia’s emissions, based on 2021 International Energy Agency estimates, with transport and industry also major emitters.
In the context of the energy market, Van Laer said, storytelling should emphasise the role of companies and governments alongside individuals.
“At the moment, it’s not presented that way,” he said.
“It’s like ‘you, consumer, you can do this on your own and then we [companies] will fall in line.”
I hear this all the time but I don’t personally see it that way. Just because I do my best does not mean I absolve companies or other individuals for not doing as much as they can. I don’t think people are walking around thinking its all their fault on not industry as well as legal incentives/disincentives.
Be a political consumer, and you’ll reduce the pollution right now, this minute, 100% certainty. But only one person’s worth of pollution.
If you vote and protest, you can take away other people’s ability to pollute, and do more than one person’s worth of work. But it’ll be slow, and it might not work.
Vote, then protest if you can, then go vegan if you can.
If every person in the world stopped emitting gases, and polluting, the world would still be heading towards disaster because corporations aren’t people, and they polute more than all of us put together to the tune of 9x more.
Thing is these corporations don’t emit in a vacuum, they emit to fill demand for their products, demand that comes from people.
If people stop traveling all over the world and ordering shit to be delivered the next day they won’t keep the planes flying for no reason, but that’s something that’s 100% in regular people’s hands. Boeing can use more efficient engines, it’s still not sustainable to use them, but they won’t stop using them if there’s demand.
This is just blaming consumers again. Which doesn’t work, as we keep saying. There’s no way to disentangle yourself from globalism, so everything you buy is going to massively contribute to carbon emissions. The only solution to a systemic problem has to be a fix to the system, not victim blaming.
No, it’s not about blame. That’s playground logic.
It’s about action. It’s about what we can do. What we can do is both vote, do direct action, and be political consumers.
Drag ranked those three in terms of efficiency in effort to change. Voting is the easiest. Being a political consumer is the hardest. But it is possible to do all three.
The fossil companies want activists to waste our effort by doing 3 without doing 1 or 2. Do 1 first, then 2. But if you have willpower left over after 1 and 2, then stop giving money to megacorps.
Didn’t know it was mandatory for me to travel to Punta Cana twice a year, I haven’t done my mandatory air travel in… 33 years! Oh shit! What about the majority of the world’s population that never took a plane, what are they gonna do? 😱
If you want to stop fossil fuel driven production of green house gases, stop traveling, reduce energy use, AND STOP USING PLASTIC. Good luck on that cabin in the woods. We’re addicted and withdrawal isn’t going to happen willingly. Hang on for the worst hangover in history.
To reduce my carbon footprint I just stop buying BP products.
They definitely running this shit as a psyop but to be clear, people have personal responsibility too
Some shot plastic is unavoidable but do you need that 6 dollar bubble tea or coffee served in the plastic cup? As long as you keep buying, they will keep selling.
Certain things have eaisy substitutes like a bar of soap wrapped in paper… Wild shit y’all
If enough people adjusted their consumption patterns parasite corpos would need to make adjustments too since they notice when profits are down.
Personal direct action doesn’t stop anyone from demanding these parasites and their regime from implementing proper rules. And that’s where public discourse should be but we can all bring a grocery bag most of the time…
This is almost exactly what the article says doesn’t work. We’ve been laying the bulk of the responsibility on average consumers–figure out your consumption, find better options–before insisting that corporations make better options available for consumers.
So, why not try putting some of the responsibility on the largest polluters first for a change? Jail or prison time instead of fines for the decision makers knowingly contaminating environments because it’s cheaper than doing things right, high corporate taxes to fund environmental remediation for the damage already done, penalties for continuing to produce goods in wasteful and unnecessary plastic packaging, incentives for work towards innovative, environmentally sound materials science and engineering. We haven’t tried any of these things, we’ve just been telling consumers, “There are better options out there, use those. It’s your responsibility!”
Like geez, it’s not as if consumers will stop bringing their own bags to the grocery store or using the reusable straws they already bought. Lots of us are already invested in doing better than we have in the past. We can continue to educate the public while also updating our legislation to drive corporate participation in the process. Why wouldn’t we?
Learn to read
This is why regulation is needed in this space. Individuals are way to selfish to take these steps on our own.
If the regulators are made up of selfish individuals who are captured by industry (lobbyists, campaign contributions, etc) then what? Please don’t say elect new officials, unless you have a solution to misinformation and the massive financing necessary to get elected.
It seems we’re stuck and we’re all just waiting for the selfish person to do the right thing. What if the selfish person is us? Perhaps the best way to navigate an unjust system is to participate as little as possible. And with that extra time we can organize and apply political pressure.
Just outlaw private car ownership and less-than-middle-haul planes. Climate crisis solved.
